South Africa; Or, The last three months of my life;
Or, I should have written this two – no wait, three – weeks ago
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Prologue: Jargon
DTS – Discipleship Training School. A six month course on living to follow Jesus. First three months in class, learning broad, important basic knowledge. Last three months spent practicing said knowledge, usually in another country, living out the commands of God through the Bible.
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Hello.
Yes, I am back in Colorado now, my beautiful home. I have a great new appreciation for “home,” even though home to me now is a few different places around the world. Home is with my family in Colorado, but it is also at Knox College with all my friends. I never thought I would love rural, cornfield Illinois, but I miss it now more than anywhere in the States. And I have a “home” in Cedarville, Michigan, and in Kona, Hawai’i. But with all these homes here, I just left my newest home, and I can’t remember ever being as homesick as I am for Cape Town, South Africa. Many of my family members are there. My friends are there. Some of the funniest, most alive kids I have ever known are living there in wood and metal shacks.
And that is where I try to begin picking up about South Africa. Everyone I have talked with have been so encouraging, asking to here stories, for me to share everything about my time traveling. So I guess I begin with some of the people. It wasn’t just me hanging out in the southern hemisphere. The experience was everything it was because we were in close community with one another. Without any one of the South Africa team members, the whole trip would not have been as productive, as enjoyable, or as transformational as it was.
We have seventeen team members. Our two leaders went with us in body the first month, and were with us in the Spirit the rest of our time in SA. Which left us with fifteen folks in body. Two are kids, Logan and Ethan, ten and eight years old respectively. Our leader in Cape Town is South African, and in fact her family lives close to where we stayed. She was a total Godsend to our team. One is Korean. Four are Canadian. And then representatives from all across the USA, from Oregon to Ohio to Maryland to Indiana to Hawai’i to Montana, and three Coloradoans. We were the greatest part of the team, of course… =P
I don’t know what more to say about everyone. There is so much I can say about each. The team was mostly girls. With the team leader from Hawai’i, the married man, the eight-year-old boy, and the two twenty-something young men, there were a total of five men. Plus Matt Hensley. When there are only two young, single men, contrasted with eight single girls, in a foreign country thousands of miles from home… It’s interesting. It’s tough. You either get really close to each other, or you don’t. There aren’t a lot – by which I mean any – of others to choose from. I wish I had tried to get close.
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Story One: God Loves
[Everyone has told me they want to hear stories. I’m a bad storyteller. I’ll try to start here. Pry me for more info, more stories. I really do like talking, I just need audience interaction.]
Interesting and mostly useless fact which I unfortunately was not able to verify: In the Cape Town airport, a check-in rep for South African Airlines told us that if you stuck a rod from Johannesburg through the center of the earth, it would come out in Hawai’i (I think he said Honolulu). How cool is that? We literally traveled halfway around the world to get to SA.
So the obvious question is, why did we fly halfway around the world to stay in SA for three months? The general and most important answer each of us had was “God called me to come, and He knew I would meet you here.” Why would God ask such an odd thing? “Because He loves you, and He wants us to tell you and show you and give you His love!” That’s what we told people. People in Cape Town, people who have money and good houses and security and people who have not, except some friends and family. People in Labanzi and Zithulele who had cattle and sheep and goats, and most of them cell phones, but no electricity. People who had heard the gospel and name of Jesus preached, most of whom professed faith, and some of whom combined Christianity with traditional Xhosa ancestral religion.
For God so loved Tata and Timicosi and Bebo and Schwapps and Clinton and everyone we met in South Africa that He gave His Son as proof, and a team of photographers from Hawai’i as a reminder and witness (μάρτυς → martyr) to His love.
When we had the privilege to talk to groups, we told them, “God loves you, and we are able to tell you this because we have been shaken and moved by His love for us.” God is love. I didn’t come up with it. 1 John 4:8,16. But John didn’t come up with this proposition either. Love is God’s character.
And love cannot exist without a subject which can love and a direct object to receive love. It requires relationship. The idea of God as Father, Son, and Spirit is implied in the very concept of love. And relationship requires communication. We go to South Africa, or Panamá, to the ends of the earth, because love means that you form relationships and communicate. Thus we tell everyone we meet, “Jesus loves me and brought me into a personal relationship with Himself, and He loves you the same way.”
[I know I have offended some, maybe many of you. This is not a popular message in a Western intellectual post-modern society; I always wanted to be a rebellious punk in some way… I hope my actions and my relationship with you speak louder than these words, and that my life bakes up what I believe is the Truth.]
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Next Season: Of Rumors and Germany
You may have heard; I’ve been trying to tell my friends in person. Many of you know…
I am planning to staff a Photography DTS in Herrnhut, Germany, this January. There is so much related to this my head spins when I think about it. This is taking up 80% of my thoughts every day. [The remaining 20% is random TV and movie quotes… TMI?]
Now, I have not been officially accepted as staff. If for some reason I do not go to Germany, than I’m not sure what I’ll do in January. I would probably go back to finish my undergraduate degree at Knox College. I only have a year left to finish. I’m hoping I go abroad to Germany, and literally God knows where, for a year or two. God’s will be done either way. I’ll let you know when I know for sure.
The scariest-but-also-least-scary thing about staffing in Germany: financial support. Yes, that’s right, I’m doing it again! And this time it’s long term, at least twelve months. I don’t want to worry about this. Not now or ever. God is reminding me of Matthew 6:25–34. Anxiety, worry betrays a mindset of fear rather than love and trust. Worry is a way of saying I am not in control and I want to be in absolute control, which is just a form of pride, which is rebellion against God’s sovereignty by thinking that I have a better plan for myself.
That’s why Jesus ends this passage by saying. “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (v.33). This is all about priorities.
There are many ways you will be able to support me, if you feel lead to. I’ll have a letter all about that soon enough. For now, I would appreciate prayer about staffing, and if God speaks to you already, than fantastic.
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This is all I’ve got right now. Hope it wasn’t too much. More stories coming soon.
Many thanks to all my friends, to those of you who have told me you’re glad to hear my voice, who have asked to here stories and see pictures. You help keep me going. Philippians 1:3–11 is about you. Pretend I wrote it to you. Paul says everything I want to say there.
Love you all, because God loves me,
C.R.R. Wolf
